Watch what you lose...

'Twas a winter evening, and a few of us were roaming around in the city, when we chanced upon a hoarding proclaiming another of those wonderful gyms with a promise to tone up and flab down. There was (as is customary) a picture of a hot babe on the hoarding, and it became difficult to comprehend (as is also customary) whether the reason for attending this gym should be those oft-failing promises of 5 kg reduction etc, or should it be the chance of enhanced proximity to the woman.
It was then that one of my co-passengers blurted out his own experience. It so happened that he had come across a somewhat similar advertisement, and following his basic instincts he had turned up at the designated venue with the hope of losing his weight, as well as the hope of losing his virginity in perhaps the same premises. This was his first gym visit, and he had perhaps drawn a parallel between the grunts and huffs and puffs of a gym to the somewhat similar sounds that get generated between the sheets.
He decided to give his luck a try. But of course, in a very prudent way so as to not make his intentions obvious. "So, this gym, when was it built?" is how he started the conversation with the receptionist. A meaningless question of course, and the receptionist was quick enough to figure out that there was some other question behind this question. But she (like all good receptionists) waited for the train to come back to the tracks. "Nice glass all around, must have been expensive, no?" was the second question. The receptionist waited. "You have a lot of trainers here, huh?" was the third nail in the coffin, said with as much expectation as is generated upon the sight of imaginary water in the desert. The receptionist now figured out where this conversation was headed, and aptly replied "Sir we have trainers for both men and women."
Our guy was now charged up "Aah, of course, of course, you should have trainers. These days so many women are taking up various kinds of jobs. I like women trainers. Would I get this (poking his finger at the image on the pamphlet) woman to train me???" You could almost see the tongue wagging, when the receptionist poured cold water on his desires, "Sir she doesn't work here anymore". One should have been there to see the expression change... He had lost everything, except of course what he hoped he would have lost in there... So much for new year resolutions...

Another bus...

Seems like I have been bitten by this bus bug... just can't seem to jump out of it...

So this time it's this very huge, gigantic, and roaring bus of real-estate...At the present rates in Mumbai, it looks difficult for a common person to lay claim to even one square foot of land, in his/her entire life. The other day they told me about this apartment (or perhaps it was a house) which got sold at 97000 Rs per square foot. The total deal size was 34 crore INR. When I first heard this, I got up from my chair and stood in the "at-ease" pose and looked at the area covered by my feet below. Not that I didn't know what one square foot meant, but perhaps I needed to do this little exercise so that I could bring myself out of the stupor caused by this news. The "ground beneath my feet" was literally slipping away...

This is one bus which I have missed. At least as of now, that's what the current status is. Land today is more valuable than gold. Houses bought for 15 lakh INR about four years back, are giving returns of about 200%. It's almost frightening. Like the feeling you get when you have climbed really high and find yourself perched on just a stone jutting out of a mountain. Leaves you out of breath. As if you rushed and raced to catch a bus but missed it, leaving nothing but wasted oxygen...

They say the US sub-prime crisis will hit India. Now that's one big bus gone on the wrong side of the road... and that perhaps will be a little too harsh for India, but seriously, somewhere this bubble needs to break. Before it grows any further, or, to conclude with our existing analogy, before the bus conductor and driver find themselves thrown out, out on the pavement (refer earlier article) where a few people are still waiting...

The "Bus" effect

Just imagine a lazy Sunday afternoon, you are standing on the pavement (perhaps under a shade, just so that the laziness persists) and are watching buses go by. So far, so normal. I mean, what's wrong with just watching buses anyways. But now imagine getting phone calls from those who actually boarded those buses and are now telling you of the cornucopia unleashed as a consequence of that ride. Now you wish you too would have joined the bulls as they rode on their gravy "buses", the sound of their resounding bank balances echoing in their every breath. And then these stories become legends, and you start hearing of uncles who had bought L&T shares for a thousand INR, or of your friend's mom who (on a broker's recommendation of course) had stocked up NTPC at 160 INR, and so on...
And then, it strikes you... here you are, with all those stocks somewhat out of your reach, while those aunties and uncles are buying real-estate with all that windfall, and while you impatiently wait for corrections, you realize you have just been hit by the bus effect (perhaps being hit by the actual bus causes less trauma).
This is what happened to quite a few Indian investors near Diwali, where more fire-crackers were lighted not to celebrate of Ram's victory over Ravana (how many of today's kids know those stories anyways?), but certainly because of Sensex' victory over the 20000 barrier.
The 20000 phenomena resulted in what is the opposite of panic selling -- panic buying. The equivalent of it (in our bus analogy) being a situation where you just hop on to the first bus that comes your way, without even looking at the route number. Though thankfully (as is usually the case), it were the upper middle-class retail investors who were the hardest victims of this malaise (remember, our FII and hedge-fund friends have everything planned out, well, almost...).
That phase is still somewhat in progress, though the risks of not reading the route numbers are now becoming evident as these investors find themselves in the middle of the desert, while FIIs continue to sell (and probably will continue till December ends), the markets continue on a partial correction course (some pockets of over-valuation still rule the mid-caps).
For those still on the pavement, it might be worthwhile to do some homework. Afterall, some buses come with only a one-way ticket...

One more, from the road...

If it weren’t for the Mumbai-Pune expressway, my blog would perhaps remain a rarely-frequented shrine, with its owner not finding enough time to put plaster on its graying walls. The scene outside is gorgeous as usual (just crossed the Lonavala exit), the evening descending slowly upon the peaceful homes, and the gentle clouds trying to adjust themselves upon the lush mountains like a sales guy shifting and sorting his thoughts at the end of another day…

The roads are winding at this point, with the air exerting extra pressure as we get closer to sea level. A section of the road is segregated by big rocks, and declared unfit for travelers as the area is prone to rock slides, perhaps nature’s own way of reminding and commanding its presence. In the city below, lights are being turned on, like a landscape full of shady mistakes with few flashes of brilliance in between. Of course the problem with mistakes is that you don’t know it’s a mistake till you have committed it. It sometimes takes years before you realize, as those follies come back….. But…, we are digressing here, and just like tunnels on a highway, digressions should not be more than two sentences long…

Most of the directions on this expressway are in two languages, much like most of the signals life gives us, one in a language which we understand, the other which we don’t, but which we nevertheless wish to learn so that we could be better at interpreting them, without appreciating the fact that we would perhaps end up taking the same exits all over again…

We are whizzing away at 140 kmph, flashing dippers at the cars in front, so that we can avoid changing lanes. Same as what we do everyday, even when we are not on the road. Because we know that changing lanes is tricky, there could always be a blind spot, catching you off guard…

It’s getting dark outside, the expressway is ending in 500 meters..450 perhaps as I will type the ellipses at the end of this sentence… It’s in times like these when I thank my high school for enforcing the learning of type-writing. Who would have thought that another seemingly useless, marks-obtaining, academic exercise would come in handy so often, including now when I look outside while my fingers do the talking for me…

The traffic’s increasing now, and that is generally inversely proportional to my creative thoughts, which means I will close now. But as I do that, I hope my frequency of blog updation is greater than the frequency of my Pune visits…

A hearty start...

It's not very often (infact, this is definitely the first time) that I log into my blogger while a Formula 1 race is in progress. But this race at the Fuji Speedway is somewhat different given that 8 laps are down even as I write this, and the safety car is still out there, for (obviously) safety reasons. Though I had set the alarm to wake up in time (this being a Sunday), but a well-wisher called up well in advance so that I could also listen to (and see) Paula Ali (she definitely was looking hot today) before the race began.
A number of players have taken pit stops already, and I have already gone through most of the Sunday Slimes of India hoping for the weather in Japan to improve (talk about being a global citizen), and this being the World Heart Day, I have started my day with a very appropriate diet of Lays chips, while contemplating a more tummy-filling pit stop (of course I am trying to think of more heart-friendly options).
A quarter of the race is over (there's no "race" still), much more than half of the chips' packet is empty (half is empty to start with anyways), I am feeling sleepy again, and my laptop's superlative battery is giving warning signals as usual (sometimes I wonder if they have put in AA cells in there).
And there's news finally -- the race has formally started, the confusion is on, even as cars start crashing...the safety car will probably be out again...methinks it's time I get back to the race... what a perfectly calm start to the World Heart Day...

Downtown Train..

It starts with “Outside another yellow moon, has punched a hole in the night-time mist…” and goes on to talk about Brooklyn girls, and heart attacks, and thorns and roses, and of course, about downtown trains. I heard this song for the first time about 15 years ago, thanks to my sister who was into picking up the latest grammy nominations cassettes (and who is, as I might have mentioned in passing, responsible for my love of the English language), and perhaps thanks also to the fact that I hadn’t been introduced to rock (as I know it), and would therefore not look with disdain upon anything that was “pop”ular in nature.
I don’t know under which strict genre this song falls, but it has somehow stuck in what appears to be more than a corner of my brain; and every so often, as things move within my head, this song perhaps gets dislodged around, making me listen to it again. And as I write this (while admiring the extremely picturesque late monsoon view from the Pune-Mumbai expressway), what comes flashing by are not the exact years that have gone by, but the phases of life that touched and went.
The time when I was the age of those Brooklyn girls, till the time I moved out of my home to stay away, and have been shifting houses (not homes, thankfully) since then. Then the phase when I started earning (for myself, and for those “carnivals”). Then back to school (“I know your window, and I know it’s too late…”), and then now, dropped into a city where the trains (downtown or otherwise) are literally “full” in much more than the actual feel of the word.
And thus here we are, subjecting ourselves to the vagaries of these journeys, almost half expecting to hear an answer to “Will I see you tonight, on the downtown train…?”

P.S.: "Downtown Train" is a song by Rod Stewart

Of directions

There's a certain kind of expertise this country's travelers have built into their DNA. It's a kind of daily practice of adventure activities like treasure hunting. Anybody who needs to visit different places in a city everyday (read salespeople :)) would probably agree with me that reaching a place in time is like finding that X which marks the proverbial spot. You get all kinds of pointers from anyone you ask. To modify a well-known adage, "directions are like ass-holes, everybody's got one".
From the very direct "just next to the CCD on SV Road" to the slighly obscure "take the left from where it says No Left Turn", to something more complex "after you have crossed the toll booth, keep going till you have traveled on two fly-overs and then take the second left from under the third fly-over just before the Shiv Sagar", to something so outrageous that it would take hunting dogs to figure out the damn place "take the first right after the children's school on the left, then keep going straight till you see the HP petrol station from where go straight till you reach a three-way fork in the road, take the right-most road till you reach the ladies' tailor, and then ask him for further directions..."
Part of the excitement of visiting a new restaurant is in finding the shortest path to it (of course the shortest path will go through a number of left and right bylanes of which if you lose count, you might have to just come back home and make an omelette for dinner). Reminds me of those obscure optimization problems we used to do in those courses on Operational Research. Except that it was on paper and you could literally go all over the place with your guesswork.
But gone are those days, and tonight I am planning to visit a new clothes showroom somewhere in Santacruz west. Any directions, please?

Independence Day...

....Is here... and there would be half a trillion Indians (our population would be around that much, I suppose?) writing about it. It's a day that invokes a wonderful concoction of hues, shades, and colors (including those on our local tricolor). It's my second independence day in Mumbai, and the short, brisk shots of rain in this city are perfectly in sync with the equally unpredictable nature of our central and state politics.
There are fears of violence, and probably justified. Somebody somewhere is probably hatching their own jehadi plot, trying to drown the sound of fire-crackers with probably louder noises...
There are the Indian cricket team players, who have given us a wonderful independence day gift...
There are the daily fresh crops of potholes which seem to grow with alarming rates on the jungle of our roads, as if they have superior evolotionary advantage compared to the gigantic fly-overs...
There are the mindless Bollywood movies churned out like the exhaust from a crowded kitchen where too many cooks are happily busy spoiling the broth...
There are the daily dreams that get crushed, reminding us that rather than forgetting what has happened to us, we seem to remember more what could not happen to us...
There are also the multi-millionaires that are being created as this nation continues with repeated drumrolls on its acquisitioning march across the planet...
There are...
..well, lots of things as you can imagine... everything has it's own significance on this particularly significant independence day. And although 60 is the traditional retirement age across most Indian companies, we can always hope that this country will continue to work as hard as ever, whatever be the results...

Power of Powerpoint

Some say "death by powerpoint", while some are actually alive because of it.

Take a look, you be the judge...

Attendance...

Most schools have these rules of attendance. Less than 75% and you lose a point in your grade, or you can't appear for final exams (no one wants to, but that's perhaps a different matter), or some such stuff that is mentioned in one of those papers that you get when you have just finished paying your first semester fees and filling out details for registration.

These days perhaps even blogs have attendance. I read this report which mentioned that thousands of blogs are floating like dead cadavers in the cold ether of cyberspace. Just when you thought there was something that could defy the rules of permanence, comes the revelation that even blogs come with a shelf life. You don't visit your e-temple often, and they label you an e-atheist. An infidel. And the punishment is to write an obituary about something you always held so close.

Your "dear diary..." amongst all the other equally dear ones, from intimate personal details to strange confessions to factual reportage... thousands of words trying to paint a picture, like an artist busily creating a sketch on the boulevard. Somebody would walk down, take a look, pass a comment, and walk away. And if they liked that one painting, they might actually search for you the next time they are on the boulevard. Probably refer your work to others who would then stop to admire, until you get famous. Until they take your name with awe, until the knowledge of your existence becomes a topic of "General Knowledge".

You would hate to see it die, won't you? Probably might be worth visiting the shrine once in a while. Who knows, what prayers might spew forth, and who knows, some of them might even be answered...

"Unsent Items"

There's a common feature in almost all of our communication devices called "Sent Items". You can see the mails and messages you sent just to reassure yourself (and probably to reassure others as well), or to serve as proof points in the terribly politically charged corporate atmospheres these days, or simply to reminisce over things you said (some which you wanted to, some which you were forced to, and some which you can't believe you said...)


But with all the technological advancements, there is one thing still missing perhaps -- a separate collection of all those unsent items that perhaps comprise an equally large volume of our communication. Every mail that you wrote but then deleted half way, every SMS that was typed with extreme deliberation, and then deleted (perhaps with even greater deliberation), and of course, not to mention the number of times you dialled a number and then abruptly cut it off before the first ring could reach the other side (Remember "...half a page of scribbled lines"?).

Who is noting down all those little pieces of thoughts that keep floating and sinking (and sometimes rising again), bobbing up and down, struggling with other thoughts around it, in the tumultous oceans of our minds? Who will be your scribe, your stenographer, and infact, who will be a patient ear to all those rumblings when you yourself can get lost within those voices?

They will make it one day. Like a vacuum cleaner for those tiny pieces of thoughts scattered along with the dust. Bring them all in at least... all that junk which is perhaps an essential after-effect of that very simple thing we do everyday -- exist...

Wool around Woolmer

"Rest in peace" is so inapplicable to this poor guy... Somebody probably murdered him. Two months back they said he was strangled. Then came the poison story. All the while the ex-coach of Pakistan was turning in his unwanted grave, partly because of the amazing performance by the Pakistani team and partly because they couldn't really figure out as to how he reached his grave...
And now what they are claiming will probably bring him back from the dead to actually tell the story. The latest news is that he died a natural death. In the 18th century, it took an ordinary postmortem not more than 24 hours to ascertain whether a death was unnatural or not. In Jamaica, perhaps medical science is trying to catch up and is already out of breath...

Some of us don't quite get famous while we are alive. For Woolmer, his strange fate has made him larger than life, after his life...

“Greetings” - Version 2.0

Everything these days comes with an upgrade patch. Sometimes you start getting warnings if you don’t. I remember till a few years back a number of congratulatory phone calls (that I would make) would start with.. “Hey….!!! This is so cool..You’re getting married..!!!. Tell me about him/her…How does it feel?” And similar questions to which I expected half-honest answers.
Things have changed now, somewhat. I find that a number of those congratulatory phone calls now start off with..”Hey…!!! This is so cool… You’re a father/mother now…!!! Howz the little one? How does it feel?” And similar questions to which I expect absolutely honest answers.
And when I have put the phone down I do tend to sit back, smile a bit, and think about the person(s) in question. About they being “ready” for this change. And then I realize perhaps none of us is ever ready for these changes. After all, most of us are going through this phase for the first time. Yes, being “world-aware” certainly adds to the ability to handle situations when things get tricky (and you bet they do…), but as I read long back, “experience is a comb that life gives you after you have lost all your hair.”
I guess the fun part is dealing with those bad-hair days without the comb. The inexperience is definitely worth it. So, hang in there… and by the way, congratulations…!

Again...

For some reason, since this morning I find myself hearing refrains of "Dogs" (Floyd) with particular reminiscences of "...who was only a stranger at home...". And that's why I decided to visit this foster home of mine again this afternoon. Yes it's my blog I am talking about. It has started resembling one of those half-constructed, iron-rods protruding one storeyed buildings on a hot June afternoon somewhere in a village in Bihar. Basically, you wouldn't really stop by at such a place for a cool refreshing drink. I know it's been abandoned for a while now.
But things will change. Back to what they were. When somebody would pull over onto the drive-way and actually order a ginger ale at times.

I am using this a convincing ploy. They say what you write, gets etched forever. Somewhere in the digital sandbox perhaps I am drawing something. And hoping it will stay. And surive. And help me survive...

Thoughts of thoughtlessness...

It’s funny when thoughts vanish just as you put the pen to paper. Or, as is more appropriate in these online times, as you put your fingers on the keyboard. It’s like picking up a furiously ringing phone only to hear a bleak dial tone as you make vain attempts to elicit some other response by repeatedly shouting Hello into it (and then looking at the receiver as if a ghost got the better of it).
Or when you switch on the TV to find a blank, blue screen (Although with all the crap that they show, perhaps the b. blue screen has its own use). Remember “Tom… No Answer”? (Brush up on your Mark Twain if you hadn’t done so in a while). That’s what it’s like. Like somebody putting a glass wall just before the waves hit the rocks, leaving them literally high and dry. A gush of feelings, ideas, emotions, like criss-cross shadows struggling to share the spot-light, not knowing that shadows don’t survive spot-lights…

Like a bunch of five year olds learning to play football, the aim being just to hit the ball somehow, the goal would take care of itself. Like me writing all this without any goal in mind. Only the shadows of those kids, like multi-colored laser lights at once blinding you, and leaving you in the dark simultaneously.

Sunday afternoon

There are perhaps countless ways to spend it.
There are quite a few who use it to catch up on lost sleep during the week. On the other hand are those who sleep nevertheless, albeit to hoard a little bit for the coming week.
Some love to eat their heart out on a Sunday afternoon, others choose this day to refrain from eating, for the sake of their heart.
Some listen to loud music, others use this time to remember foregone shades of tranquility by abstaining from any external sources of sound.
Some go online to relive their virtual lives and “catch up” with all the action they’ve been missing, while others unplug themselves from all those bits and bytes that bite into their usual waking life.

In short, Sunday afternoon is perhaps the time when in time and space, you can observe the maximum number of contradictions (at least on Mother Earth, ain’t too sure about the other Mothers…)

Matter of fact, out of all those innumerable ways to spend a Sunday afternoon, chronicling the arbitrary possibilities in your blog is also not such a bad idea perhaps?

Home again...

Hey it's me. Back again. Like one of those little kids who ring your doorbell and then run away... Only to come back later after half an hour and smile sheepishly. I know that's how it has been with me. Ringing familiar doorbells. Then running away, and then concocting smiles, sheepish or otherwise. But coming back nevertheless, almost religiously. Meandering, fumbling footsteps, finding their way to the altar.

But as I mentioned in the last post as well, some big changes have occured. Those once-in-a-lifetime kind (at least that's the premise that one continues to live with). One way tickets. You can only look back and wave your hand at your previous self. And look at the tracks you covered and the fences you have jumped over. Very interesting feelings if you actually start thinking about them.

And now that we have arrived again, that's exactly what I will do for a while...

Strange...

...Ever wandered into an old room that's been locked for months? Ever smelt that air when you open up that left-in-the-corner box? Ever held that doll in your hands and became oblivious to the dust around?
And ever found your way back to your blog after more than a month?

It's a pretty similar feeling. Like losing your way around and then finding yourself walking into the gates of your garden.
Yes there've been changes. Rather big changes. But as Rush would say, "plu ca change, plu c’est la meme chose" (The more that things change, the more they stay the same). Perhaps the weed has grown a little bit in this garden, perhaps the birds have become more comfortable, perhaps there's some moss on those unturned stones... But my garden is still the same. Almost.

Isn't it strange that it's in the most unexpected of moments that we do what we had always expected from ourselves...
That it's in the nearest corner of our garden where we find the most overlooked flowers...
That's it in the eyes of that broken doll in which we find our deepest secrets...

"And if you listen very hard, the tune will come to you at last..." (Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin)

And in the end…

…Some believe it doesn’t really matter. But maybe it does.

Sometimes it’s your past that catches up with you. And sometimes, it’s your future. But once the battle is over, that strange, haggard entity left holding a consolation prize, is your present. And the trouble with this poor present is that it can’t blame either of the two. It’s the past that has led to this, and it’s the future where this will lead to. It’s like staring at broken pieces of glass and finding the culprit therein. Doesn’t work.

And still we continue to believe that in the end, it wouldn’t really matter. But whatif it does… ?

…And all the men and women, merely players

They say life comes full circle eventually. Only in this case, I suppose this eventuality occurs every week. Here we are again, at a distance of 7 days from the last post. The fading sounds of this weekend’s beating retreat.
I sometimes don’t believe the curtain has to rise. I mean, hold on… can’t you see, we are still fixing the fucking footlights… And the mikes, and the sound system, and the violin whose bow is missing again. I don’t know what I am going to sing when I am on the stage once more. Where’s the goddamn song? Where are all the actors? Where is my dress rehearsal? More importantly, where is my dress?
Where is my mask that I need to put on? Still lying broken in places, from last week’s overuse. And from all the acid the audience threw on it. In anger or desperation, I would not know. Maybe they wanted to know what I was hiding. Maybe they just didn’t like the contraption itself. But do you know what’s the worst part of wearing a mask? Apart from your makeup going waste (which perhaps, is trivial), your mirror fails to recognize you.
This is how it feels every time the doors finally close and as the last late entrants among the audience have stumbled into their numbered chairs. That’s when you start missing the musician who met with a heart attack yesterday. And the director who met with a road accident. And the script-writer who met with a writer’s block…
And as the players assemble to enact, you find yourself feigning ignorance for some, and recognition for others, as your eyes search through the holes of their masks.

Welcome home, ladies and gentlemen. Let the show begin…

Where have all the weekends gone…?

Come Sunday evening, and this is one question I always ask myself. Surprising how fast they vanish. Like childhood friends who grow up too soon and settle down a few million miles away from you, leaving you with stories of Jack & Jill to talk about with your office colleagues on Monday mornings.
These two days disappear as if they never existed. Leaving behind another trail of things that you had said you will finish this weekend. Only to know that another set of unfinished promises and lunches and dinners have instead taken their place. Probably the leaking tap has been fixed and the blipping tubelight has been replaced, but there’s still that little plaster falling off the wall, the shelf has not been cleaned, and a pair of shoes that you were supposed to buy one month back…
And before you know it, Monday is knocking on the week’s door, too eager to gate crash into its short party. Infact even as I write this, I can see it lurking outside the window, creeping behind shadows, with that evil smile, as if Gollum were calling for its Precious…

The Taxidriver – A short play in one Act…

…and 7 scenes…

Scene 1 – 9:30 AM – A suave gentleman in a Louie Philippe shirt and a Zodiac tie approaches a taxi to take him to his office. The smell of Gillette Storm Force is still lingering as he closes the door.
And as the journey begins, he pulls out his PDA and starts communicating with his colleagues on how best to close the next sales deal. The taxi driver is listening, attempting to understand “revenue”, “sales cycle” and “competition”, but never fully aware of the gentleman’s chronic Stage 2 of Hypertension…

Scene II – 11:00 AM – Two teenage college girls, in tank-tops and jeans, board this taxi to drop them at the nearest movie theatre. The smell of Dolly Girl and Ralph Lauren Romance perfumes is still lingering as they close the door.
On their way to the theatre, they chit-chat and giggle about overbearing moms, acnes, sunsilkgangofgirls.com, SPF lipsticks, boys…
The taxi driver is listening, smiling to himself at times, but never fully aware of one of the girls’ drinking habits…

Scene III – 1:00 PM – A middle-aged woman and her 7 year old son hail this taxi to reach home from the son’s school. The smell of mud, books, and Adidas PT shoes is still lingering as they close the door.
They talk about homework, angry teachers, the son’s friends and dad’s indifference…
The taxi driver nods at times and then disapproves as he searches for his own kid’s words inside his taxi, never fully aware of the bullies in the little boy’s class…

Scene IV – 4:00 PM – An old man in a light grey flannel suit calls the taxi to reach the telephone exchange. The smell of ruffled papers and Emami hair oil is still lingering as he closes the door.
He talks to the taxi driver about ridiculous phone bills, painful government offices, and his wife who never listens to him. The taxi driver seems to understand most of the old man’s gripes, but is never fully aware of that one stranger’s number, who his daughter has been calling for the past one year…

Scene V – 7:00 PM – A recently married couple calls the taxi to reach Bandstand.The smell of fading henna and thick ivory bangles is still lingering as they close the door.
And the taxi driver feigns ignorance at the sounds of quick breaths and swiftly moving hands in the backseat, searching, finding, hoping…
He trudges along on the jammed roads, never fully aware that the woman’s past is about to catch up with her…

Scene VI – 10 PM – Two mid-twenties girls step inside to reach an uptown disc. The smell of permed hair, stilettos, Chanel No 5 and Christian Dior is still lingering as they close the door.
They blabber about fake jewellery, the rates at Kaya skin clinic, anti-hangover pills, Cosmopolitan, and men…
The taxi driver is pretty much clueless about the entire conversation but can’t help adjusting his rear-view mirror once in a while, never fully aware that one of the women is a kleptomaniac…

Scene VII – 2 AM – A bar-girl is escorting a totally sloshed early 30s guy into the taxi. The smell of Green Label, butter chicken, kaajal and dried tears is still lingering as the driver closes their door.
The guy is staring up at the taxi roof, searching for the bar lights there. The taxi driver is staring at the almost-empty road, searching for sleep. The girl is staring out her window, searching for nothing. No words are spoken throughout, and the taxi driver is fully aware of what the rest of the night is looking like…

It must be odd, to catch a nap after all that. When disconnected fragments of the lives of so many people flash around you in a day. It’s like gazing through a huge, rusted kaleidoscope, looking at the light through multi-colored glasses, never knowing the complete picture, yet being drenched in every taint that the kaleidoscope has to offer. And these tinges change day after day, night after night, stranger after stranger, with the only constant companion of the taxi driver being the faithful meter, which of course never minds being turned over, and over again…

The year that was…

.. or something similar. Because this night, every news channel, every print house, and any damn body (and their uncles) who are in showbiz would be summarizing the essential happenings of this year.
The point is, I don’t want this to be a summary. I don’t want this to be something that everyone does. Like a goodbye to a friend. Because this is not a goodbye. The friends might still come back, the year doesn’t. So what is this going to be? I guess the most logical genre would be – an obituary.
So let’s put it in that style then… and what better time than these wee hours of the morning. When the 31st of Dec 2006 has still not comfortably found its place in its grave, and the 1st of Jan 2007 is still slowly crawling out of its womb…
Let’s look at the dead in a different light. It’s as good as talking about something that doesn’t come to life again. No second chances perhaps. From the profound to the mundane to the purely materialistic...

Like the max educational degree that I will ever attain. The PG from India’s highest ranked B-school, received in the year 2006. And the death of a few chances with it, for not being an elite top-grader therein.
Like one of the highest ranges our sensex will ever attain. And my delays in opening up accounts with brokers to invest in it.
Like the amazing prices Indian real-estate is commanding. And my inability to still ride the gravy train.
Like the visit to US with a stop-over in Paris. And my lack of planning to end up just roaming around only in the airport.
Like the weddings of all those friends. And my strange schedules which prevented me to attend even one of them…
Like the Art of Living session almost behind my house. And my callousness to not attend even an hour of it.

But of course, I have to thank 2006 for introducing me to Mumbai. It's a screwed up city allright, but admittedly, Churchgate, Marine Drive, Bandra, Andheri, Santacruz (even Goregaon and Malad for that matter) have become essential ingredients now...

Well… may the year 2006 rest in peace. And may the early shrill cries of this new year serve as guiding beacons towards a more fruitful conclusion next time.
Until then, cheers to 2007, and here's hoping that 365 days hence, I shall be writing a eulogy for you...